1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a system, device, apparatus, program, and method that performs an output, such as printing, based on output data. More particularly, the invention relates to an authentication output system, network device, device utilization apparatus, output data management apparatus, output control program, output request program, output data management program, and authentication output method that is suitable for protecting confidentiality of output data or output content.
2. Related Art
In performing printing on a network printer serving as a network device, when a host terminal serving as a user's device utilization apparatus exists at a place away from the network printer, there is the possibility that the content of a print may be seen by someone else before the user goes to the network printer. This is of a problem in the case of printing a confidential document which the user does not want anyone else to see. Therefore, it is demanded that the network printer be provided with a security function.
Conventionally, as technology for improving the security of the network printer, for example, there are a printing apparatus disclosed in Patent Document 1 (JP-A-4-364971) and a recording apparatus disclosed in Patent Document 2 (JP-A-2002-370407).
In the invention of Patent Document 1, first, it is determined whether a print job received from the host terminal is a normal print job or a spool print job (i.e., it is determined whether to immediately print the print job or to put the print job on standby for later printing). If it is determined that the print job is the spool print job, the print job is developed to output data, and the developed output data is stored into a storage device together with job designation information. When the user enters job designation information, then based on the entered job designation information, a print job to be printed is specified from a plurality of print jobs stored in the storage device, and output data of the specified print job is read to perform printing.
In the invention of Patent Document 2, a confidential print request is made through a communication network, and upon reception of at least a password and first-page data, the password and data are stored into a storage section, and an entered password is compared with the password stored in the storage section. If they match each other, the first-page data is printed and recorded, and second-page and subsequent data are received and printed.
However, the invention of Patent Document 1 is configured to hold the output data in the printing apparatus. Therefore, there is the possibility that the output data may be stolen by a fraudulent access, etc. during the time the output data is being transmitted from the host terminal to the printing apparatus, or by the time printing is started after the printing apparatus holds the output data.
Besides, the invention of Patent Document 2 is configured to perform printing when the password is identified. Therefore, for example, when a plurality of users make print requests at the same time or almost at the same time, if those users happen to set the identical password for their own data, there is the possibility that the content of a user's own print may be seen by another user. Furthermore, since this invention is configured to hold the first-page data in the printing apparatus, the first-page data provides the same problem as in the invention of Patent Document 1.